The Sound (34 page)

Something cold and hard crosses his face, his eyes turn to stone. And I realise it doesn’t matter anymore. There’s no way back for him or me. He meant it when he said he can’t
let me go. I react almost without thinking. I yank my arm free and smash the heel of my hand into his face, drawing my fingernails across his cheek. He jerks with an angry yell and I fumble for the
door lock. But before I can reach the handle his hand slams up around my jaw, gripping me tight. I press my head back into the seat, angle my chin downwards and I bite down hard into the soft flesh
between his thumb and forefinger.

Mr Thorne yells as my teeth rip through the skin. He lets go again and I punch him as hard as I can in the face. I hear him bellow and at the same time my fingers hit the release button on the
seat belt. He lunges for my top, grabbing a fistful of the material and trying to shove me back into my seat, but anger has an even bigger grip of me now, is trading places with terror, and I am
screaming and hitting and kicking with every ounce of fight left in me, my lungs screaming and sucking in great gulps of air. ‘Get off me!’ I yell.

With one hand I feel behind me for the door handle and the pop as the door opens is like a victory roar. I feel cold air behind me and then I’m falling backwards. My feet land on the road
but Mr Thorne grabs hold of my wrist as I turn, ready to flee. A searing pain shoots up my arm. He is leaning all the way across the passenger seat, trying to drag me back into the car, his face
red and straining, and I realise that he’s still buckled in. With his wounded hand he’s reaching to undo the belt and I know I have just one chance. I fumble, twisting my free arm
behind me, reaching for the can of Mace that Carrie gave me. I pull it out of my pocket and hold it up and it’s only then I realise that I’m holding my inhaler. I drop it to the ground,
smashing the heel of my other hand against Mr Thorne’s arm as he tries to snatch at me and pull me back into the car. I manage to twist around for long enough to find the Mace and I drag it
free and whirl around, spraying it straight into his face. He screams and lets me go. I fly backwards, smacking my head against the car door, and for a second I’m so dizzy I think I might
fall. My wrist burns, my arm is shooting pain up into my shoulder but I barely notice.

I’m running, running blind. Into the dark. Into the woods. Ricocheting off branches, tripping over tangled tree roots, gripping my arm as I stumble on, sobbing. Are those his footsteps
coming after me or is it the wind? A bird? An animal?

I come to a flying halt and crouch down in the dirt, trying to listen. Is he following me? But my breathing is so loud and laboured it’s all I can hear. That and the wild drumming of blood
in my ears. My heart is no longer a caged bird but a dozen bats trying to burst free. I close my eyes and try to sink down into the dark.

My fingers burrow through sandy soil, damp leaves. I want to claw my way deep into the earth, roll beneath the leaves and bury myself. I want to sob and scream and melt and turn to smoke and
vanish. When I open my eyes the world spins, recedes then rushes back in.

‘Ren!’

His voice yells my name. Over and over. Filling my head with the sound of it and tearing apart the night.

I need to stand up. I need to run. But I’m frozen. My back is slammed against a tree. My lungs are beginning to close down. I try to suck in a breath but it gets stuck and all of a sudden
the sky looms darker and larger overhead, the stars fuzzing out of focus and dissolving into the blanket sky.

A crunch.

I shrink back as far as I can, feeling the bark of the tree scratch a bloody trail across my shoulder. I bite my lip, choking off the scream that is fighting to burst out.

He is out there, holding his breath as I hold mine. Ears pricked, eyes scouring the darkness. I can sense him there waiting, just a few feet away, his head tilted as he listens, and I can no
longer balance my weight on the balls of my feet. My knees are going to give, my arms are shaking.

Tears are slipping noiselessly down my cheeks as my eyes dart left and right strafing the darkness. I can’t see anything. It’s pitch black out here. In the distance the roar of the
ocean seems to be calling to me, whispering my name, urging me to make a run towards it.

A twig snaps to my right.

I haul myself to standing in that same second and then I am running, ignoring the shooting pain in my arm and the sting of branches slashing at my face. All I can hear now is a roaring in my
ears.

And behind me, coming closer,
his
breath,
his
footsteps and the heat of him rising like a mist. My feet hit something soft. I’m on the beach. The trees have given way to
sand dunes. The ocean sounds wild and close. If I can only make it there . . . because where else is there to run to? And then suddenly my foot hits something sharp, a rock buried in the sand, and
I’m flying, falling fast, and I land hard, my ankle twisting, and I let out a yell that I try to smother with my other hand. I roll onto my back, kicking at invisible hands. I try to draw my
legs up to my body, to curl into a ball, but my ankle explodes in pain and I can’t move it. And I whimper, not because of the pain but because fear floods my tongue and it’s as foul as
earth and it’s fear which is closing up my throat as surely as his hands sliding around my neck and squeezing.

I want my mum. And I sob her name out loud into the darkness, and over the sound of the ocean roaring I hear his breathing, loud and heavy and excited, coming close.

But the thought of my mum is enough to push back the fear and let the rage in. And I’ve never felt such rage before. It almost cancels out the fear, roaring inside me now as deep as the
ocean.

I start scrabbling desperately for something – anything – to use as a weapon.

My hand sinks into the dune, trying to find the object I tripped on, and my fingers close around a rock, heavy with jagged, sharp edges. I draw it into my lap and sit there clutching it as the
tears stream down my cheeks.

My breathing is coming in little gasps now. I’m struggling to force air down into my lungs – they’re on fire from the inside, smoke-filled and layered with ash. My fingers are
starting to tingle. My lips are going numb.

And then he appears, a dark shape against the sky, and the rock slides out of my hand and falls with a muted thud to the sand. I open my mouth to scream but I can’t because my throat has
squeezed shut and there’s no air left in my lungs.

And the last thing I see, before the darkness drowns me completely, is him.

Another crunch makes my eyes fly open. Mr Thorne steps towards me. The moon sends a dull, unfocused strand of light through the branches and he’s momentarily dipped in
phosphorescence, lit up like a ghost. Darkness brushes at the edges of him and then he fades. My breathing is shallow. My heart no longer races. I can’t even tip my head back to look at him
as he looms over me. I’m still and broken and sinking down, down into the ground, and then beneath the ground.

I’m glad. I’m glad that I’m going to die this way and not at his hands. I think of Jesse. I think of my mum, but the thoughts of them flit away like leaves on a breeze. I
cannot even snatch for them.

He kneels down in front of me, foul breath in my face, reminding me of how sweet air usually tastes, and his hand reaches around my throat, his fingers strong as vices. My neck tips forwards as
if I’m trying to help him. He doesn’t seem to wonder about that. He just starts to squeeze. Lights burst electric behind my eyelids, dazzling eruptions of stars blossoming, blooming
then dying.

And then I’m falling headlong into velvety darkness.

I hear a thump, a smack, a sigh and someone yells. It isn’t me. I can’t hold onto thoughts but Jesse’s voice buzzes loudly in my head, snapping me back into consciousness. I
try to open my eyes, to see. Is it Jesse? Is he here?

And then there are hands on my body – lifting me, softer hands, a softer voice calling my name, shouting my name, forcing something between my lips, the sweet tang of something against my
tongue. More shouting above me and around me, indistinct and growing louder, sounds becoming words, words becoming sentences. ‘We found her! We need to move her!’

I become aware of the sky, of the earth, of my feet buried in leaves, of my cheek pressed against something warm. I am bumped and rocked and something is attached to my face and I can breathe
again. I can breathe!

Air flows into my lungs and I’m hungry for it, desperate for it, clawing at the mask over my mouth, wanting more.

A hand pushes me down. Another hand – familiar as my own – strokes my face, brushing back my hair. And lips lay kisses across my brow, almost fervently.

And Jesse is saying my name over and over.

‘Ren, Ren, Ren. You’re safe now. I found you.’

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!! How was ur day, bitchface?

Great. Awesome. Amazing.
I cannot stop grinning as I pound out a litany of words that don’t even come close to describing the level of magical awesomeness I’m currently
feeling on this, my eighteenth birthday. If I’m a helium balloon I’m currently spinning my way around the Milky Way, trailing stardust and electrical storms in my wake. Or something
equally spectacular to behold.

What did Jesse get you?

My eyes fly to the bedside table on which sits a pile of new books (including
How to Play Guitar
, which sort of seems redundant given I have Jesse to teach me), and a bicycle repair kit
(ahahahahaha). I am also wearing part of his present to me but I’m not about to describe to Megan the exact feel of silk against my skin so I just say,
Books.

Sexy
, she fires back.

I think of what else Jesse gave me – none of which I’m going to describe to Megan – and the grin almost tears my face in half.

What’s happening? Any more serial killers try to kill you?
Megan asks.

Not this week.

How’s the neck?

My hand flies automatically to the bruises, now almost faded away, that ring my throat. Jesse has done his best to kiss them away. My ankle too is much better. I can actually put weight on it
again.

How’s Boston?
Megan asks. I know she’s upset I’m not back in London, even after the judge said I could leave if I promised to return for both trials, which will be
sometime next year (by which point I hope that Tyler Reed has made lots of friends in prison and that Mr Thorne is stuck in solitary confinement in a very dark hole in the ground).

I love it
, I write, banishing all thoughts of Tyler Reed and Mr Thorne.

Love it? Or love him?
Megan writes back. A row of lasciviously winking emoticons follows.

Both
, I answer, grinning like a person with just two brain cells, both of which are located in the region of quiver.

I have been in Boston for four weeks. After the night where I became known (in some massive conspiracy by all English-speaking media outlets on the planet) as the
English Nanny that Got
Away
and Mr Thorne became known as the
Nantucket Nanny Serial Killer,
everything unsurprisingly changed in my life. Not least Jeremy unfriending me on Facebook.

Mike and Carrie felt so bad that one of their friends had tried to kill me (though Mike claimed Mr Thorne was never a friend of his, only of Carrie’s) that they immediately tried to make
it up to me. They offered me a job nannying for them in Boston after the summer (with a supremely large raise) and Mike sweetened the deal by throwing in an internship at the
Boston Globe
on their arts section. It was almost worth getting strangled over.

Where’ve you been?
Megan asks.
It’s late.

I pull off my press pass that’s dangling round my neck as I type,
Just back from a gig.

Jesse’s band?

Yeah. He’s so good. I’m just finishing writing a piece about them. It’s going to be in the arts section tomorrow! I’ll send you a link.

Wow. That’s so cool.
She pauses.
You are so not ever coming back, are you?

Um. We’ll see.
My A level results weren’t of the famine, pestilence and death variety but suddenly the thought of going to university in England holds about as much appeal
as being chased through dark woods by a crazed killer. I’ve deferred my place for a year, but who knows whether I’ll take it. Jesse is starting college in the fall in Boston so
there’s always that option. But I don’t tell Megan that.

Even though Megan is irreplaceable, I’ve become good friends with Paige, Tara and Niki over the last month, and have also been adopted by Jesse’s family who can’t thank me
enough for saving Jesse from a lifetime behind bars. His dad is busy rebuilding the business with the insurance money from the fire, and Hannah is back home in Nantucket (Jesse and I are overseeing
her musical education long-distance).

I heard on the grapevine (well, actually via a television interview Sophie gave Oprah) that Jeremy, Matt and Eliza have had to go into hiding and that their trust funds have been wiped out
paying for their dad’s court costs. Apparently Mr Reed refuses point-blank to defend him though, which I’m grateful for, given his track record for helping murderers get off scot-free.
He’s got his work cut out for him anyway, trying to mount a defence for Tyler and Parker in the face of the insurmountable evidence we piled at the police’s door.

I admit that I felt a momentary pang of regret when I found out about the triplets becoming destitute, not for Jeremy or Eliza, but for Matt, who actually turned out to be a nice guy. But then I
discovered that he’d signed a six-figure publishing deal to tell his story, so I stopped feeling bad (my mum made me turn down the offers I got, claiming that it was unethical to benefit
financially from what had happened and frightfully common to sell one’s story to the papers – sometimes I hate being English).